Holding back the years

When I was young, it was simple. Little girls wore little skirts and tops. We had brightly coloured clips in our hair and carried sweet little bags in which might rest a Mr Man book and/or a plastic beaker full of squash. We knew, however, that when we grew up, we would put away such childish things. Confine them to the dressing-up box. In return, we all eagerly anticipated an adulthood of flesh-coloured tights, wedge-cut hair and handbags.

Then, about five years ago, these simple rules changed. After the traditional teenage flirtation with push-up bras, spots and clunky shoes, twenty- and thirtysomething women found themselves reclaiming the kindergarten. Bye-bye shoulderpads and trouser suits. Suddenly, accessories and clothes for five-year-olds were in vogue.

It started with 'actress/ model' Sadie Frost and her intensely irritating sparkly hairclips. Wearing them as an adornment on dead-straight hair, and in partnership with an oddly serious facial expression, Frost emanated a perfect double whammy of youth + intelligence. Forget Liz Hurley, described in That Dress by the Evening Standard as 'over-ripe'. Hurley, and others who dressed to suit their age, looked positively matronly compared to La Frost, who dressed to suit her shoe size.

Which brings us to Paula Yates. Faced with the Frost Hairclips, the nation's favourite scapegoat went one better by sporting a girlie-sized Little Miss Naughty top on national television. This really started something. Suddenly, women everywhere - mothers, even! - were throwing on Little Miss tops and grabbing Hello Kitty bags. It was as if we had all developed age amnesia. Everyone was grooving, hairclips a go-go, to Teletubby music with toddler T-shirts as dancewear.

The latest children's icon to receive this adult-cult treatment is that little white rabbit called Miffy. Miffy, for the uninitiated, is the charming offspring of the Dutch illustrator Dick Bruna, who invented her 45 years ago this month. Shortly to star in her 100th book, she is dearly loved by children across the globe. The first 40-odd years of Miffy's life passed in a way that might be expected - parents bought the books, children loved them, scribbled all over them and then forgot about them, as children do. But now these children have grown up and rediscovered Miffy. And not for their own offspring, but for themselves. Miffy is particularly huge in Japan, where this year vast beds of tulips have been grown in her form and fans are prepared to cross the world on pilgrimage to stand outside Bruna's front door in Utrecht.

Here in Britain, the Frost/Yates brigade is equally Miffy mad. Miffy clothes are doing a brisk trade at Top Shop, where spaghetti-strap tops in lime and lilac and hooded jackets in navy and orange are sweeping out of stores, tucked under the business-like elbows of 30-year-olds; in Soho there's nothing quite so stylish as wearing a Miffy T-shirt. You might even go to a board meeting brandishing a mobile phone in a new Miffy carrying case.

Not surprisingly, Bruna, now 72, is said to be delighted by this worldwide craze. He has established boundaries, though. He doesn't want his other characters, Snuffy, Boris Bear and Poppy Pig, to be used for mass-merchandising purposes - the books they appear in are apparently for children alone. There are also rules about the ways the Miffy image can be used. There is no chance of Miffy underwear, for example. Unlike the creations of authors such as AA Milne, whose Pooh books are stuffed with grown-up jokes and witty asides, Miffy's world is strictly a child's world.

Marketing expert Alison Vellacott admits that she is mystified by it all. 'It is unusual for something to take off in this way without there being a television product alongside it,' she says. 'I think people just remember Miffy from childhood. Women love the minimalist style and groovy colours. Or perhaps they are buying into the simple, innocent image of childhood.'

Tim Spratt, manager of London lifestyle shop Brats, is accustomed to women coming in and asking for red-and-blue plastic Miffy bucket bags. 'This sort of children's gear is now chic for adults,' he explains. And sales of more traditional baggage by, say, Louis Vuitton or Mulberry are apparently suffering. According to Spratt, that sort of stuff is very last century. 'When I started out 10 years ago, we sold Mulberry all the time,' he says. 'Nowadays it goes more slowly. People just don't want to spend £78 on a purse. Not when you can spend £15 on something fun and lively. Something which says you're still young at heart.'

But, one has to ask, as with the Tweenie clock, when will it stop? Spratt is unsure. 'I bought some Miffy shampoo for a friend the other day. He is 68 years old. He adored it; I knew he would. He just loves the drawings.'

Yet this is a craze that goes beyond irony, or even art appreciation (despite the fact that Miffy limited-edition prints are doing a brisk trade this season in Harrods). Although the Miffy gear comes built for adults, Vellacott admits that you have to be pretty flat-chested to get away with one of the tops. Dress like a child, become a child. Or perhaps the Miffy option is just cheaper than plastic surgery. Why get all those wrinkles smoothed out with collagen? It's far easier to simply go on a bit of a diet, don a Miffy top, add a couple of hairclips, and watch the years drop away. Rosie Millard